daisyflower

Ok, pity party. Table for 1 please. Quick rant to get all this negativity out of my head.

I’m almost 4 weeks postpardum and I can’t look at myself in the mirror!! Not even dressed will I take more than the quickest of glances at myself. I feel deflated. I have the tummy of a 90 year old, stretchmarks that resemble a horrible encounter with a tiger, I’m too fat for even my fat pants and am still living in maternity wear. I WANT MY BODY BACK!!! Even my face looks different…dare I say…older? I look and feel frumpy 99% of the time. Urgh. This sucks.

Ok, I feel slightly better after getting that off my sagging chest I just have to keep repeating my mantra, “Your body is a body, not a rubberband. It’s not going to ’snap’ back without some work.” Later peeps. 

Well, hmmm. It’s a good thing I’ve erradicated the word “perfect” from my vocab because last week was far from it. Although I did manage to get out an walk a few times and squeeze in 2 workouts I spent most of my week covered in spit up. It’s so hard for me to get and stay motivated when my husband is around. But he’s back to work this week, just left in fact so that means I can set my daily rountine how I want it. We’ve spent the last 4 weeks playing the “What do you wanna do today?” “I dunno, what do you want to do today?” game. And inevitably nothing happens. I did manage to keep my food under control because 1. I wasn’t that hungry and 2. it was hard to eat with the amount of time Damien spent nursing last week. So here’s to a better week! I’m joining Weight Watchers (for the 3rd time) on Thursday and going to try really really hard to get in a workout before hubby gets home from work 4 days this week and another workout on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll keep the scale sliding downward.

I’ve lost 2 lbs, mainly due to the shift in my hormones, but hey, I’ll take it! This week I’m trying to incorporate salads into my diet, any thoughts? I hate salads! My mom used to force me to eat these sad iceberg salads at dinner and ever since I can’t get myself to like them. Oh sure, if you give me a plate of tomato slices, cucumbers and assorted raw veg I’ll gobble it down, just as soon as you call it a salad though…things change. But I’m giving it a shot. If I can eat just 1 small salad a day for this week I’m going to reward myself with a medium Mickey D’s french fry this weekend.

Today I weighed in. I have gained back every ounce of the 12 pounds I lost 2 years ago. Every……single….ounce.

This is actually a good thing. It’s good because I saw the number as purely that, it is a number on a scale. It does not reflect how I feel about myself. I am still a kickass girl, smart, witty, funny and that number didn’t have the wrenching effect on my mood that it did a month ago. After getting off the scale I turned and looked at hubby, he was sure I was about to break down sobbing after he heard the number. I just shrugged, kissed him, and said “I lost it once I can do it again.” And went and poured myself some cereal. He was dumbstruck. This is a complete 180 for me.

I can do it again. And it’s ok if it takes a while and its ok if I’ve got extra jiggle for a spell. I love me. I’m not beating myself up anymore. Giving myself nightly guilt trips because,”Why me?! Why can’t I have the willpower of the skinny people?! Wah Wah Wah” I’m not doing it to myself anymore. Obviously it isn’t working. Beating myself up emotionally isn’t making me any happier with myself, so why go through it? If I eat a cookie, so what, it’s a cookie, it’s not poison. If I skip 1 or 2 workouts a week, what’s the worse that can happen? A smidge extra cellulite on the butt, big deal. It’s not like I need to order a casket. My worth is not measured by the scale in the bathroom. My husband would love me if I were 3 times my weight. My family loves me just the way I am, so who exactly am I trying to impress with losing weight?! Myself. And in the past she has been quite the enemy to battle with. So we’re working together on this one. I’m pulling together the forces of my ego AND my body and we’re going to lose weight for health, ok and maybe a teeny bit of vanity. Cuz the only person I have to impress is myself and aren’t I worth impressing?

Unemployement was going to be great! I was gunna have all this time to work out and get my body together!! Before you knew it I’d be down to the goal weight without the food temptations around like at work.

HA!

Reality hasn’t panned out like that at all!! More like I’ve been so busy trying to get some dresses sewn and working on my designs that I don’t incorporate movement into my day!! I don’t think I’ve walked more than 3,000 steps a day since losing my job!! That’s down from the 8-10,000 I used to get in. I don’t have time for much other than designing. >Ok that’s a straight forward lie. I am really passionate about what I do and I get caught up in the momentum of it. I choose sewing over going to the gym, I know that. But if its any consolation I put everything else on hold too. My house is a wreck, the kitchen is for lack of a better word…crunchy, laundry needs to be done. Most days it gets to be 2 o’clock before I realize that I haven’t brushed my hair or teeth (I know, yuck). I need to work on some time management. Yes have fun making dresses for part of the day and take care of the practical stuff other parts of the day. Urgh.

I’m feeling fat today. Time to get back on track. I promise to myself  that even though I’m making a trip home this week I will get more excercise in AND follow my weight watchers points. I pinky promise to myself that I will put in 5, yes 5 workouts this week. I can do this, it’s just a matter of making it a part of my routine. I will focus on taking as much care of my body as I am taking care of my budding business. After all I am the face of these designs and in less than a month I’m going to be modeling them in my photo shoot. I need to look good if I want them to sell. Enough babbling. Time to get to it.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading over the years on nutrition, eating, and our anthropoligical realtionship to food. While this fad diet says 1 thing another spins the same information to mean something completely else. I’m tired of the bad information out there!! In almost EVERY diet I’ve come across there is 1 common thread in ALL of them, eat your veggies. And through my reading of the humans direct tie to certain foods its hard to believe what we see present at the dinner table most nights. This is going to be a bit of a ramble…prepare yourself.

Yesterday hubby and I went to Trader Joe’s. If you don’t have 1 in your area, it’s an ’organic’ supermarket. I hadn’t been there before and I was hoping to go and see all kinds of fruit and veg I’ve never seen in my life, strange chutneys, homemade grass fed sausages and the like. I couldn’t have been more disappointed!! It was all premade prepackaged food. Now lemme give you the 411 on prepackaged food, 80% of it has MSG in it….yes….even organic! Hubby and I have recently decided not to eat anything we don’t recognize as food. So as I started picking up things and reading names like Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Sodium Caseinate, Glutamic acid, Yeast Extract, Malted Barley Flavor and yes Monosodium Glutamate…..all of these have the same name, MSG!! A known cancer causing agent and poisen showed up under the label ‘organic’. Watch it out there, there are wolves in sheeps clothing. If my great great great grandma didn’t recognize it as food I can’t find 1 reason why I should eat it.

Already I’m feeling the differance, I’m not as tired, I have more energy and the key was just finding a way to prepare veggies in a way I enjoy them. So ladies and gentlemen please please please read up on the chemicals your feeding yourself and your family. Our species survived 150,000 years without this crap and we don’t need it. Rice, potatoes, butter, olive oil…these foods kept my family thriving through the generations, don’t let bad food information stear you wrong. Read, “In defense of food” by Michael Pollan and you won’t look back.  Eat your veggies and food you recognize as food, without all the weird additives and chemicals and you’d be surprised how fast the weight comes off. I switched to eating like this and after 1 week I lost 4 pounds….I hadn’t lost any in the 3 months of being on this site.

Could it be that the low/reduced/non-fat items were in fact making me fat? Probably. I switched to full fat normal everything. It tastes better, so I don’t eat as much. I’m not fooling myself into thinking it’s healthy so I guess I can have more more more.  My kitchen is a mess because I’ve actually used it this week! I feel great. Ladies, forget all the ‘health’ information you’ve heard in the past 50 years, its wrong. Do what great greatgrandma Ruth woulda done and you’ll be ok. Limit portions but really really savor what it is that you’re eating. Don’t eat with the tv on, have a lovely sit down with your friends or family. And fall in love with what food should have been. A cultural expression of celabration, life, love and community.

Ok so finally I’ve lost some weight!! So excited! I’ve been writing down everything I eat for over a month now and I lost 2 lbs this week! Go me! Now I just have to remember not to go crazy this week, I’m not anywhere near my goal yet. No need to throw out all my hard work on overdoing the splurges. But either way I’m learning that old addage that “Persistence is Key.” Really works, no matter how annoying it is Feels good to be on the road to lasting weight loss.

What is it about mentration that really messes with my ability to keep it together? I don’t care what I eat, I don’t care that I didn’t move any farther than the refridgerator today and I certainly am not taking pride in my appearance. On the surface, yeah, I’d like to lose weight, but feeling so lazy it’s as if I need someone else to do it for me. I first feel like crap from not doing anything all day, then I feel emotionally like crap- because I haven’t done anything all day - so I eat- because I haven’t done anything all day, and repeat. Every month this is where I lose all the hard work I’ve put in. I’ll lose weight, I’ll be on a good roll “yeah! I’m down 5 lbs!” Then PMS comes into town like a bat outa hell and wrecks everything I’ve worked towards. Anyone else know what I’m going through? It’s like someone else moves into my body stays just enough time to reverse ALL work done in the previous weeks.

How do I stop it? Behavioral therapy? Pad lock on the fridge? From what I’ve already read on the web here’s what I’ve found, “Eat healthy and stay away from caffeine and refined sugar,” “Take  a B vitamin and stay away from caffeine and sugar.” Who are they kidding? I drank a diet coke today and it tasted like the nectar of the gods! Sure taking a B vitamin took away most of my cravings for chocolate, but then there’s that lingering desire (?) no, lingering all consuming all encompasing NEED for all things cheesy. This is so lame. I’ve got control over everything else in my life, but this week my constitution takes a break and I end up in the fetal position on the couch, crumbs all down my front, watching Love Actually and crying my brains out, who am I?!

Ok, so here I am, giving myself over to the gods of the internet. I don’t usually blog since there’s never much going on in my life, but I promised myself in ‘09 I was going to try new (sometimes scary) things; like giving blood for the first time. So here I am world. What am I to learn?

Let’s start with the basics shall we? I’m 26, live near DC with my husband and 2 cats. He’s a teacher, and I work government retail. I have my BA in fashion design (turns out it ain’t that marketable, go figure) from Wayne State U.

 I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I don’t really like the path my life has taken. I feel like I’m trapped on a white water raft and am being pushed along rather than self propelled. So we’re shakin’ things up around here. 2009 is my year damn it. I want adventure and life and laughter and conquering ambitions and color and movement, so I’m going after it. I’m going to do a Sprint Triathlon in June and really I’m just hoping these 15 lbs drop off as a secondary action to my training. It’s easier that way, eh? I’m watching what I eat, but really as a vegetarian who doesn’t hardly ever eat junk and counts her  14 cheez-its and still follows weight watchers points, what more can I do?

I bet it’s the excercise. I’m a consistant non excerciser. Well, not true, I manage about 1 day a week at the gym. Certainly I can make more of an effort there. I hate the gym. I feel good when I leave and have put in a good workout, it’s just murder to get me through the doors (anyone who can lend some help, here would be great) in the first place. There is a 3 year old whiny bratty little girl inside my head who pipes up and throws some monster tantrums when it’s announced we’re heading to a workout. She gets incredibly stubborn and digs in her heels and holds her breath and won’t budge. How do I silence that?

I’m really hitting rambling speed now. What is it that I want out of this experiance? Power. You heard me right, power. If I can conquer a sprint TRI I bet I’d feel like I could do anything in the world. I want to take this life of mine by storm and surprise myself. I already have as a matter of fact, wanna hear about it? Ok, you twisted my arm.

My hubby bought me a book on TRI training for christmas (’08) and I was totally geeked and poured myself into it for the entire holiday morning. I got to the chapter about workouts and the first workout, let me say it again in case you didn’t hear the FIRST workout was to run a whopping 30 minutes. WFT?! I’ve never ran more than 10 minutes in my whole life and you want me to run how much?! And this is coming from the girl who heard from her parents her whole life, “You’ve always had bad feet” “You can’t run, never could” “Blah blah negative blah.” I looked at my hubby with pleading eyes, ‘I can’t do this, did you save the reciept?’ kind of a look. All he said was, “You can do that, you can run for a half hour.” The more I thought about it the more it became a challenge. I slapped on my shoes and headed for ye ol’ gymnasium and you know what? I did it. I DID IT!!! I, me, myself ran for 30 minutes. When I finished I was shaking so bad and without a word handed the car keys over to hubby, he thought something was wrong, not a word out to the car, into the car, down the road…I burst into tears. “You had to drive because I knew I’d be crying the way home!” I managed. I was on top of the world that day. I don’t know that I’ve ever been prouder of myself than then, not even when I graduated college. I want more of this feeling, I’m hooked.

So the real challenge now begins, can I, the little girl from Po-dunk Michigan make her life what she wants? Can ‘09 be filled with the best sucesses to date? Sprint TRI, give blood (horrible fear of needles, blog to later follow), change careers, payoff my debt, write a novel, lose those stubborn 15 lbs and be on the road to greatness? You’re damn straight. Because I’m worth it (yes, that was entirely too corny, I apoligize).